Manchester City 1-0 Chelsea: 5 Talking Points

#2 It's all too easy for Manchester City and the league is pretty much theirs

The master and his favourite student

Manchester City, for all their dominance in the league. wouldn't have, in their wildest dreams, figured they were this revered even amongst their top title rivals (in an ideal world, i.e). They have been this free-scoring juggernaut so consistently that Chelsea only ever wanted this evening to not turn into one of them nightmares.

After having played Arsenal twice in the past week, the Cityzens had been expected to show signs of fatigue but Chelsea did all they could to help their opponents relax and even recuperate by offering them acres of space and deciding to play spectators for the entirety of 90 minutes.

It was more of a case of City restricting themselves and deciding that the one goal was more than enough after gauging Chelsea's character on the pitch.

Manchester City had 77% of the ball at some point way past the half-hour mark in the first half and the gulf in class between Pep's side and Conte's was as explicit as it could be.

Chelsea are a shadow of the team that won the league last time around after finishing 15th points above Manchester City.

Manchester City started with Zinchenko at left-back. Zinchenko is a winger and is not famous for his defensive abilities and even after he got yellow-carded, Chelsea never looked like they were even remotely interested in the possibility of exploiting that weakness.

This was perhaps the greatest indicator of the difference between these two teams. One team that is too scared to be adventurous and the other that can win a race in second gear.